Dancing Gemini

The foundation was laid at Newbury in August 2023, where Dancing Gemini won a Class 2 race on what his trainer Roger Teal would later describe as rattling fast ground — quicker than the horse had ever encountered. He went down by only a neck in a subsequent run there, prompting Teal to remark that the horse "went down on his sword" and was "a Group 1 winner waiting to happen." That was not bluster. Dancing Gemini went on to win a Class 1 at Doncaster in September 2023, returned to win another Class 1 at Doncaster in March 2025 — making him 2 wins from 3 races at that track, a genuine course specialist — and then delivered again at Sandown less than a month later.

The soft ground label that followed Dancing Gemini for much of 2024 appears to have been a misreading. Teal was pointed in his frustration after Sandown: the horse never got a fair run in a wet summer that seemed to confirm a narrative the trainer never believed. His record on slightly soft ground is strong — 2 wins from 3 races — but his Class 1 win at Sandown came under very different conditions, and Teal was emphatic that he is not a one-dimensional horse. The opposition at Sandown included a horse trained by the celebrated André Fabre that had finished third in the French Guineas, which gives the result genuine international weight.

Teal's Lambourn yard has sent out 21 winners this season alone and is clearly in fine form. As of this week, the trainer reports Dancing Gemini in excellent shape following a good piece of work, describing him as fit and ready while they keep him ticking over before his next appearance. Recent form figures of 1-1 from the last two races suggest a horse at the peak of his powers, and with Teal already eyeing Ascot, the best may genuinely still be ahead of him.